Sins of the Mother
by cherishyourheartache
Summary: Lily Luna Potter reflects on her son and her choices.
1. Chapter 1

Lily Luna often finds herself wondering just where she and Teddy went wrong with him. She thinks perhaps their first mistake had been in their choice (or rather her choice) of name. Naming him in part for an instituted, schizophrenic killer and the woman her family could no longer keep track of seemed to be, in hindsight, some form of highly ironic foreshadowing.

At the time of her son's arrival Lily had been confused and frightened and just a little bit in denial. Her husband was away on yet another ill-timed case and despite her mother's presence and her cousins' easy reassurances the delivery had been terrifying. And when the squalling, warm little lump was placed on her still swollen belly the wave of affection that overcame her did little to ease her fears. Having such a tangible sense of responsibility for another life was overwhelming, but she swore to do as best she could with Teddy's help.

Her first hurdle in parenting came (rather laughably now that she can reflect on it) in the form of naming the boy. She struggled for a whole week, using pet names and monikers in place of a real name; she was almost driven in desperation to leave the task to her mother. But when the baby's hair had turned from a dark shade of brown to blindingly silver blonde and his odd, mismatched green and brown eyes became that familiar shade of grey as she fed him one night that her choice became both obvious and natural. Cepheus would be for both her love of astronomy and her truest friend and guardian since Hogwarts, Victor for her favourite cousin and Teddy's own confidant.

Teddy had initially scrunched his nose and scoffed at the name when he returned from his mission, but he didn't protest and Lily took that as a good sign.

"He can always be called Seth for short," he conceded and grinned when little Cepheus opened his mismatched eyes to peer up at him, "but Cepheus Victor Lupin does have a certain ring to it."

Lily realises now though, that she could not possibly have known that Victoire would disappear and elope with one of her students. And she certainly could not have predicted that Scorpius would have finally given in to the visions he described to her one stormy night after their graduation, eventually descending into madness and killing his own father.

So Lily comes to the same conclusion each time – it couldn't really be her fault that her son turned out so wrong. A snap decision made in the middle of the night was not the cause of his twisted thoughts, his ability to run and hide or his willingness to associate with mischief and lies personified. But then her son's slow smirk, so eerily reminiscent of her own teenaged cockiness, plays over and over in her mind and in the papers, and suddenly she is no longer so sure of her innocence.


	2. Chapter 2

Sometimes she thinks that their next mistake (Lily keeps saying their, but really the mistakes are all hers) was in deciding to have no other children.

Of course, Teddy had breeched the subject once when he had returned from one of his longest and most gruelling missions. They lay together in their four-poster bed, his muscled chest pressed against her back and his large hands wrapped around her own and he asked her in the darkness if another baby would fill the loneliness she and Cepheus must have felt when he was away. Lily said no with resounding finality and true to his character, Teddy didn't push for a reason. She always loved that about him, his absolute faith in her decisions. She knows that if he had of asked her 'why' she couldn't have given him any proper reason without coming across as selfish and vain.

But if she wants to be really honest with herself, Lily knows she said no more out of selfishness than anything else. She knew she could not go through another nine months of back aches and horrible bouts of nausea that could last for days on end and she knew that another baby would most probably ruin the figure she had worked so hard to regain after Cepheus.

Lily also knew that she was not quite suited to parenting. She loved Cepheus with all of her heart and she couldn't imagine never having him but the little boy was draining. She often found herself wailing along with him when he was frustrated or naughty and unwilling to co-operate or listen to her. Both Lily's mother and grandmother reassured her that he would grow out of it and they were right of course, but Lily could not bring herself to go through that with another baby; she thinks she just may have collapsed and given up, perhaps even joined Scorpius in St. Mungo's.

What's more, whenever Lily or Teddy so much as mentioned the possibility of a little brother or sister to Cepheus, he would scream and howl and clutch at their legs, begging them not to replace him. His passionate little outbursts amused Teddy and he would laughingly reassure the little boy that a new baby was not a replacement. Lily on the other hand, was always taken aback by how vehemently the boy believed he was not cherished. She took it as an insult to herself; was she too cold? Did she not show how much she loved him? Did she show him too often how much he could irritate her?

Lily sometimes lets herself imagine what it would have been like if she had said yes to Teddy and had another baby. Cepheus would have come around to the idea eventually she thinks. A playmate and companion would have done wonders for his aversion of other children (and as he grew older, his aversion of people in general) and she thinks, judging by the once close relationship he shared with Al's little Lotte, he would have made a wonderful big brother. She indulges herself every once in a while and pictures a little girl with an ever-changing nose following Cepheus adoringly, or a little boy with hair as red as her own tugging on his hand and leading him on this adventure or that.

The 'what ifs' and 'should I haves?' become too much though. It is only when she is most confused by the crimes written against Cepheus's name in Teddy's Auror reports that she tries once again to justify her own innocence to herself. She allows herself to believe that it was quite possibly Cepheus's protectiveness of (not so little anymore) Lotte that started him on his dark path and not her own poor mothering skills or his lack of childhood companionship.

And so Lily always comes to the same conclusion; a sibling would have only driven him further way. She deludes herself into thinking that it quite possibly would have sped up the process of his isolation and descent. But if this were completely true, she wonders why images of wild curly haired little girls and boys with eyes just as mismatched as Cepheus's haunt her so at night.


	3. Chapter 3

Wow I am so sorry this took so long to update, I've just been having trouble getting articulate sounding words down lately. Hope you enjoy this next instalment.

**Disclaimer: **_Only Cepheus Lupin belongs to me, the rest of these wonderful characters belong to the goddess J.K. Rowling._

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Maybe, she thinks one day as Cepheus's familiar mismatched eyes sparkle cruelly up from her copy of the Honest Speaker (she stopped bothering with the Prophet years ago), she shouldn't have encouraged the friendship between Scorpius and her son. To this day she does not think her old school friend was malicious, or that he killed his father on purpose; his instable magic, coupled with an addiction to various illegal concoctions finally won out in the end. Despite this, she still tries to delude herself into thinking that Scorpius singlehandedly moulded her son into the scarred, cruel young man he is today.

As a small child, Cepheus would enjoy visiting "Scorpy" and his "white magic dragons". Lily would often indulge him, revelling in the chance to visit her friend and simultaneously keep her wild son occupied for hours at a time. Scorpius seemed to welcome the distraction from his self-inflicted hell, somehow managing to conjure Patronus after Patronus for Cepheus to chase. Even Draco Malfoy seemed to have a soft spot for little Cepheus and he would charm countless miniature Pterippuses and Thestrals for the boy to ride. Lily often found herself jealous of the Malfoys' easy relationship with her son. Perhaps if she had made more of an effort with Cepheus instead of wallowing in her own petty jealousy she could have bonded with him as the Malfoys had.

By the time he was ten, it seemed only the Malfoys could win a true smile from Cepheus. Lily had long since resigned herself to appreciating his occasional half-attempts at placating her and she found his awkward grimaces better than no reaction at all. And even though it makes her feel guilty even now, Teddy's inability to draw a grin from Cepheus without resorting to using his Metamorphmagus abilities or a complicated charm or two always made her feel somewhat better about herself. Even Lily's dad, a favourite with both James and Albus's children, could barely earn himself a twitch of the mouth or a raised eyebrow from his stoic grandson. The rare moments Lily had (accidentally) witnessed Cepheus displaying something akin to joy, his hair had been a blinding silver-blonde and his eyes shone a mismatched silver and blue.

When Cepheus was thirteen, Scorpius was arrested for the murder of Draco. She remembers the hours she spent holding Cepheus the night she told him of his beloved godfather's imprisonment and the death of his surrogate grandfather. Lily doesn't quite know why she encouraged Scorpius to write to her son, though she thinks it may have been a misguided attempt to bring him the comfort she had failed to give. In hindsight, she really should have known better. Surely with proper support and counselling, Cepheus would have pulled through.

To be fair though, Lily never expected their correspondence to become as important to Cepheus as it did. And she never thought Scorpius would encourage her son's foray into the dark arts. She wonders why she never intercepted their letters over the summer, or why she never thought to read what they wrote to one another. Perhaps then she would have found Scorpius's instructions for the poison he used to kill himself with, the very same poison Cepheus used on dozens of victims. Or maybe she would have found the runes Cepheus used to imprison his targets (and on one occasion Teddy), or the directions to find various illegal and dark artefacts still in the possession of the Malfoy family.

Sometimes Lily is able to convince herself that it wasn't her misjudgement that lead to her son's destruction. If Professor Firenze were still alive he may have said it was simply written in the stars, that Cepheus was bound to tread a path of darkness. Perhaps her loony old Astronomy professor would have said that those born under Mars were destined to a life of chaos. Personally, Lily believes that in the end, there may well have been nothing she could do to stop her supernova son from imploding.

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*Author's note: Pterippuses are winged horses.


End file.
